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The Dark Energy Camera (DECam)
Is a new
high-performance CCD imager for the prime-focus of the Blanco
telescope at CTIO. It is being built as part of the Dark Energy
Survey (DES) Project by the DES
Consortium, which is a Fermilab-led international collaboration of
over 120 scientists from 12 institutions in the USA, UK, Spain and
Brazil. DECam will be a facility instrument, available for all
users from early 2012. The DES Consortium, in exchange for the
instrument and a community pipeline will receive 525 nights over 5
years to carry out the Dark Energy Survey. The project is funded
by the DOE and NSF, the funding agencies of the UK, Spain and
Brazil, and contributions from the consortium institutions.
The DES Project is organized as three sub-projects - The
construction of DECam (lead institution is Fermilab), the DES Data
Management System (lead institution is U. Illinois)and CTIO Facilities Improvement
Project (CFIP, lead institution is CTIO). |
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Characteristics of DECam
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New Prime Focus cage and optical corrector
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Three square degree field, 0.27 arcsec/pixel
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62 2Kx4K LBNL red-sensitive CCDs, (QE 60% at 0.4 mu, 90% at 0.9 mu).
Read time 17 seconds.
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g,r,i,z,Y filters, plus some "community" filters
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Community Pipeline will provide raw and processed (single and
stacked frames, astrometric and rough photometric solutions)
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Data served from the NOAO Science Archive
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The
Dark Energy Survey (DES)
- Next-generation imaging sky survey ("Super Sloan") aimed at
understanding the acceleration of the universe
- 525 nights 2011-2015 to cover 5000 sq-degrees of the South
Galactic Cap in five filters
- Survey area overlaps with the South Pole Telescope and the VHS
Vista Survey
- Measures the dark energy equation of state parameter with four
complementary techniques: galaxy cluster counts, weak lensing,
angular power spectrum, type Ia supernovae
- DES data will be public after 12 months (single processed frames)
- High level data products (catalogs, etc) available at mid-survey
and after the end of the survey
- Will enable a great deal of other science for the community, as
did SDSS.
- See
http://www.darkenergysurvey.org
- See the short
presentation by DES Director Josh Frieman at the January 2011
AAS Meeting
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The CTIO Facilities Improvements Project
- New Telescope Control System for the Blanco Telescope
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- Repaired & Improved Blanco primary Mirror Support System
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- New Cleanroom in the Blanco dome accommodate DECam and NEWFIRM.
- See an
update.
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Contact people at CTIO
DECam Deputy Project Manager, CFIP Manager: Tim Abbott
DECam Instrument Scientist: Alistair Walker
DES Consortium Members: Chris Smith,
Tim Abbott,
Alistair Walker
Read:
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CTIO
>
DECam & DES
